Early male touch fastener products were generally woven materials, with hooks formed by cutting filament loops. More recently, arrays of small touch fastener elements have been formed by molding the fastener elements, or at least the stems of the fastener elements, of resin.
In most applications, male fastener elements are designed to releasably engage with a mating female fastener component carrying a field of loops or fibers. To engage the loops, the male fastener elements must penetrate into the field of fibers at least until the tips of the engaging fastener element heads have sufficiently extended beyond some of the fibers, such that the fibers can be engaged by the heads.
It is often difficult to manufacture male fastener components which strongly engage mating female fastener components when the female fastener components are characterized by a sparse pile and/or a low pile height. Furthermore, it is often difficult to manufacture male fastener components that have a gentle ‘feel’ against the skin, and at the same time provide strong engagement to a mating female fastener component.